Molson Hart

The following is crass given the global suffering Coronavirus, but it’s realistic and something everyone is thinking. How to profit in an economic crisis caused by the Coronavirus:

First, I consider price gouging on supplies to be immoral (though it could be argued that price increases spur increased supply). If you have undisrupted access to masks, meds, etc you’ll make enough money selling non-stop.

Second, as I’ve said, imho best case is huge economic disruption, worst case is 2-4 % of world pop dies, but who knows. So now that I’ve attempted to dissuade you that I’m a sociopath/idiot, let’s look at what is likely to happen:

1. there’s going to be a cash crunch. So any way you can get your hands on cash now is good, ideally at low cost. Line of credit is probably the best of option. Get it now because you can’t get it later

2. Any business that has significant debt and relies on people gathering is in big trouble: theme parks, restaurants, brick and mortar retail (ex-grocery obviously), etc. There will be big opportunities in this space because these businesses will bounce back after a year

3. travel is screwed. During 9/11 the us govt stepped in and offered the industry guaranteed debt. I expect a similar situation. 4. China-dependent businesses are getting hit first. In 6 months we may not have stock on the shelves.

The virus goes global so a domestic supplier of whatever isn’t going to get you far. 5. Less densely populated, better medical care, and countries with fewer old people will perform much better. USA is in a great position.

6. Unless government steps in, medical insurers will have problems. A week in icu with ventilation is conservatively $70k. Multiply that by 1 million people. It’s like 2-3x hurricane Andrew.